That Will Happen Before 2100 [Video]
It can be hard enough to predict what will happen next week, never mind next decade, or the end of this century. But based on current trends, plus agreements for the future that were set in place years ago, we can at least begin to surmise what our world will look like over the rest of this century. By the time to party like it’s 2099, expect the following to have become reality.
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India will become more populated than China by 2022
China’s been the most populated country on Earth for quite some time, but the way things are going, don’t expect their reign on top to last much longer.
A 2015 study of global population trends conducted by the United Nations, shows that by 2022 the new undisputed champion of too many people will be India.
Previously, it was thought India would take the top spot by 2028, so clearly they’ve been working on making more babies than originally thought.
In addition, the UN predicted that the United States will no longer be the third most-populated country by 2050.
Rather, Nigeria will take the bronze, as Africa is expected to add more than half of the world’s new people by that magical year. If that’s not enough, the UN expects overall population growth to skyrocket to unprecedented levels.
By 2050, it expects 9.7 billion people in the world, and by the end of the century a smothering 11.2 billion.
Those numbers alone are incredible, but when you consider that in 1900, Earth housed a mere 1.6 billion people, it’s almost stupefying to realize she could be putting up with 9.6 billion more just two centuries later.
That Will Happen Before 2100 [Video]
We’ll be on Mars by the mid-2030s
Roel van der Hoorn
We haven’t been to the Moon since the 1970s, but that’s okay. We have another goal in mind now: walking on Mars.
It’s a pipe dream that may soon become reality, if one of the many organizations trying to pull it off have anything to say about it.
On August 30, 2011, ten space agencies from all over the world met as the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG), to discuss plans to visit the Red Planet and perhaps exact revenge on Marvin the Martian for his continued plans to destroy Earth.
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The hope is to get humans on Mars by the mid-2030s. They currently plan to do it one of two ways: sending astronauts back to the Moon or conducting manned missions on a nearby asteroid first.
Either path should help the astronauts chilling on those dead space rocks to work on the technology necessary to first perfect robotic missions to Mars, and then eventually make manned missions a reality.
The ultimate goal is to focus on Mars as a possible new home for humans, whether Earth is still in good shape or not. That’s all well and good, provided we eventually give Mars what it really, truly needs: cheerleaders.
Arctic sea ice might all but disappear by 2037
When you think of the Arctic, you probably think ice, and lots of it. That may well not be the case for much longer, as the Arctic could run out of sea ice within the next couple decades.
According to research published in a 2009 edition of Geographical Research Letters, based on recent trends where both 2007 and 2008 saw a large loss of Arctic sea ice (water from the Arctic ocean that freezes), as well as data from six different Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) models, we’re on pace to lose virtually all Arctic sea ice by 2037.
According to their calculations, there were 4.6 million square kilometers of sea ice in 2009 — by 2037, there will be under a million, which might as well be nothing at all.
Plus, the ice will likely be much thinner than what we have today, making the loss of the remaining million kilometers an even more dire possibility.
The study makes no mention of when we might expect the Arctic to lose ice completely, and hopefully that never happens because then we’re all in major trouble.
AI will be as smart as humans by 2040, smarter by 2060
Artificial intelligence has gotten way smarter as of late, but it still stops short of being as smart as us.
After all, without humans to plug information into it, it’s got nothing. For now, anyway — the way things are advancing, we may well be dealing with AI as smart as us, if not smarter, in less time than you think.
According to Ben Ross, an expert at MYOB Technology, artificial intelligence is on pace to match human intelligence by 2040. He figures this thanks to averaging out many expert predictions, plus relying on Moore’s Law, the idea that some computer parts double their powers every year.
So by 2040 they’ll have advanced to the point where they’re as smart as us. If that’s not amazing (or scary) enough, Ross also feels that by 2060, AI will actually surpass human-level intelligence, and what that means for us fleshy types is basically in our hands.
That Will Happen Before 2100 [Video]
As Ross put it in his TED Talk, “We have time to make sure that we guide its pathway forward — ensuring a great outcome instead of bad.”
In short, super-intelligent, super-powerful AI could mean Wall-E or it could mean Skynet. It’s our choice.
Hong Kong and Macau will no longer be independent of China by about 2050
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Depending on where you live in China, you may be dealing with a completely different style of government than your buddies an hour down the road.
That’s because Hong Kong and Macau, despite being part of China, are their own entities with their own styles of government.
Thanks to the “One Country, Two Systems” compromise, Hong Kong (which was a British territory until 1997, when China took over sovereign rule) is a capitalist city in a socialist country, while Macau is almost completely autonomous, basing itself heavily on the culture of Portugal, the country that ruled it until 1999.
Thing is, these compromises have an expiration date. In both cases, they’re set to run out 50 years after they were signed, meaning Hong Kong is set to revert to Chinese rule in 2047, while Macau will join them in 2049.
For the time being, this means both territories will become socialist by then, though we all know contracts are made to be renegotiated.
One think tank, called the One Country Two Systems Youth Forum, is designed to foster communication between Hong Kong youth (the ones most likely to be affected by a 2047 government change) and China, to ensure whatever happens that year will make as many people happy as possible.
Likely, Macau will work to ensure similar communication because it wouldn’t be a good look if 2049 rolled around and Macau suddenly turned socialist and took everyone by surprise.
Rats, weasels, and other invasive predators will be gone from New Zealand by 2050
Aside from nuclear bombs, few things are worse for the environment than invasive species, which show up in places they’re not natural to, kill and eat the local wildlife, spread diseases the locals aren’t prepared to fight, and just plain mess up the natural order of everything.
Some places, like New Zealand, are beyond done with them, and they’re making eradication of outside pests a top priority.
If New Zealand’s plans work out, by 2050 all sorts of invasive predators will be off the island for good.
That includes rats, weasels, opossums, ferrets, and creatures that other parts of the world take for granted but that New Zealand wants nothing to do with.
According to Prime Minister John Key, such animals kill over 25 million native birds a year, like the kiwi, the most iconic New Zealand thing this side of Hobbit holes. So they’re looking to set more traps, drop more poison from the air, and get all these pests gone by mid-century.
The cost, according to a 2015 University of Auckland study, will run the country over $6.2 billion, which is a bargain compared to what it would cost to not do anything: over $11 billion.
That’s like being forced to choose between a 100-degree day and a 130-degree day. Both are really uncomfortable, and given the chance you’d rather not either way, but you can at least survive 100 degrees.
The ozone layer will be completely healed by 2075
We don’t hear much about the ozone layer lately, but in the ’70s and ’80s, the humongous hole created by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), harmful chemicals found in spray cans, air conditioners, and other culprits emerged as one of the biggest threats to our civilization.
If it got any bigger, we feared, the Sun’s ultraviolet rays would freely rain down on us and quickly roast us alive.
Thankfully, once scientists realized what was drilling the hole, numerous steps were taken to reduce using the chemicals causing it.
Since then, the ozone layer has been slowly but surely healing itself. In 2014, a 300-scientist-strong United Nations report reported the first significant increase in ozone volume since it started to go away.
Still, it’s a slow process; according to the UN report, the ozone layer won’t go back to what it was in the ’80s until 2050. It won’t be until 2075, meanwhile, that the most damaged part of the layer — the area over the Antarctic — will fully recover. At its worst, the Antarctic hole measured over 30 million square kilometers.
That Will Happen Before 2100 [Video]
It’s currently around 20 million, which is still way too big for a hole that decides whether we turn into a water world.
83 percent of the Amazon rain forest will be gone by 2100
One of the saddest things our planet has lost over the decades is our rain forest, and the way things are going, we aren’t getting any of it back anytime soon. In fact, we’re set to lose much more of it before this century is through.
In 2009, the UK’s national weather service unleashed a report saying that, based on global trends, the world was set to get hotter by 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2055.
And that’s just an average: Some parts of the world may jump an insane 16 degrees Celsius, or 28.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Any more than that, and we’re all but boiling the world.
What’s worse, this means that by the year 2100, we’ll have virtually no more Amazon rain forest.
Wolfgang Cramer, a climatologist at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, projects that at least 83 percent of the rain forest will be gone by century’s end.
Amazingly, that might be a conservative estimate, as it’s based on the possibility that the atmosphere will release extra carbon dioxide and help protect the rain forest from drought.
Problem is, that might not happen, and if it doesn’t, as Kramer so grimly put it, “We risk losing the entire Amazon.” That is, provided we haven’t lost our lives to heat stroke before then.
Hundreds of species of birds will be extinct by 2100
Everyone loves birds, except maybe poor Tippi Hedren from The Birds.
They’re cute and colorful and ensure that our nation’s cats will never go hungry. But at the rate we’re going, we’re going to see many fewer feathered friends by century’s end.
According to a 2011 study on climate change, upcoming extreme weather, both hot and cold, will likely start killing birds off en masse.
The study believes that, if global temperatures rise 3.5 degrees Celsius (6.3 degrees Fahrenheit), anywhere from 600 to 900 species of birds will go extinct.
What’s more, the study states that for every extra degree in temperature, 100 to 500 more bird species will die off.
Most affected would be birds living in places where the temperature rarely shifts all that much.
If those places suddenly get too hot or too cold, the birds likely won’t be able to adapt and survive.
While that number is low compared to all the birds in the world — according to the American Museum of Natural History, there are currently about 18,000 species of ex-dinosaurs roaming the land and skies — it’s still an alarming extinction rate.
It would get worse if some places on Earth jump over 16 degrees Celsius, as the UN fears. If that happens, we could lose half our birds in under 100 years. A future like that is, dare we say, for the birds.
Many of the “strange, almost impossible” predictions made by Watkins came true. Here is what futurologists Ian Pearson (IP) and Patrick Tucker (PT) think of your ideas.
That Will Happen Before 2100 [Video]
1. Oceans will be extensively farmed and not just for fish (Jim 300)
IP: Likelihood 10/10. We will need to feed 10 billion people and nature can’t keep up with demand, so we will need much more ocean farming for fish.
But algae farming is also on the way for renewable energy, and maybe even for growth of feedstock (raw materials) or resource extraction via GM seaweed or algae.
PT: Good chance. According to Dennis Bushnell, chief scientist at the Nasa Langley Research Center, saltwater algae that’s been genetically modified to absorb more nitrogen from the air than conventional algae could free up to 68% of the fresh water that is now tied up in conventional agriculture. This water could go to thirsty populations.
2. We will have the ability to communicate through thought transmission (Dev 2)
IP: Likelihood 10/10. Transmission will be just as easy as other forms of brain augmentation. Picking up thoughts and relaying them to another brain will not be much harder than storing them on the net.
PT: Good chance. Synthetic telepathy sounds like something out of Hollywood but it is absolutely possible, so long as “communication” is understood to be electrical signals rather than words.
Brain
3. Thanks to DNA and robotic engineering, we will have created incredibly intelligent humans who are immortal (game_over)
IP: Likelihood 9/10. It is more likely that direct brain links using electronics will achieve this, but GM will help a lot by increasing longevity — keeping people alive until electronic immortality technology is freely available at reasonable cost.
PT: Good chance. The idea that breakthroughs in the field of genetics, biotechnology and artificial intelligence will expand human intelligence and allow our species to essentially defeat death is sometimes called the Singularity.
4. We will be able to control the weather (mariebee_)
IP: Likelihood 8/10. There is already some weather control technology for mediating tornadoes, making it rain and so on, and thanks to climate change concerns, a huge amount of knowledge is being gleaned on how weather works.
We will probably have technology to be able to control weather when we need to. It won’t necessarily be cheap enough to use routinely and is more likely to be used to avoid severe damage in key areas.
PT: Good chance. We will certainly attempt to. A majority of scientists in the US support a federal programme to explore methods for engineering the Earth’s climate (otherwise known as geoengineering).
These technologies aim to protect against the worst effects of manmade climate change.
More readers’ predictions
◾English will be spelled phonetically (jim300)
◾Growing your own vegetables will not be allowed (holierthanthou)
◾The justice system will be based purely on rehabilitation (Paul)
◾Instead of receiving information from the media, people will download information directly into their brains (krozier93)
◾Crops will be grown in sand (jim300)
5. Antarctica will be “open for business” (Dev 2)
IP: Likelihood 8/10. The area seems worth keeping as a natural wilderness so I am hesitant here, but I do expect that pressure will eventually mean that some large areas will be used commercially for resources.
It should be possible to do so without damaging nature there if the technology is good enough, and this will probably be a condition of exploration rights.
PT: Pretty close. Before there is a rush to develop Antarctica we will most likely see a full-scale rush to develop the Arctic.
Whether the Arctic states tighten control over the region’s resources, or find equitable and sustainable ways to share them will be a major political challenge in the decades ahead.
Successful (if not necessarily sustainable) development of the Arctic portends well for the development of Antarctica.
That Will Happen Before 2100 [Video]
That Will Happen Before 2100 [Video]
6. One single worldwide currency (from Kennys_Heroes)
IP: Likelihood 8/10. This is very plausible. We are already seeing electronic currency that can be used anywhere, and this trend will continue.
It is quite likely that there will be only a few regional currencies by the middle of the century and worldwide acceptance of a global electronic currency.
This will gradually mean the others fall out of use and only one will left by the end of the century.
PT: Great try! The trend on this is actually more in the opposite direction. T
he internet is enabling new forms of bartering and value exchange.
Local currencies are also now used by several hundred communities across the US and Europe. In other words, look for many more types of currency and exchange not fewer, in the coming decades.
7. We will all be wired to computers to make our brains work faster (Dev 2)
Big Morongo Wildlife Preserve (2007)
Image caption
Will deserts become tropical forests?
IP: Likelihood 10/10. We can expect this as soon as 2050 for many people.
By 2075 most people in the developed world will use machine augmentation of some sort for their brains and, by the end of the century, pretty much everyone will. If someone else does this you will have to compete.
8. Nanorobots will flow around our body fixing cells, and will be able to record our memories (Alister Brown)
PT: Good chance. Right now, medical nanorobots exist only in theory and nanotechnology is mostly a materials science. But it’s a rapidly growing field. Nanorobots exist within the realm of possibility, but the question of when they will arrive is another matter
IP: Likelihood: 7/10.
9. We will have sussed nuclear fusion (Kennys_Heroes)
IP: Likelihood 10/10. This is likely by 2045–2050 and almost certain by 2100. It’s widely predicted that we will achieve this.
What difference it makes will depend on what other energy technologies we have.
We might also see a growth in shale gas or massive solar energy facilities. I don’t think that wind power will be around.
10. There will only be three languages in the world — English, Spanish and Mandarin (Bill Walker)
IP: Likelihood 8/10. This does look like a powerful trend, other languages don’t stand a lot of chance.
Minor languages are dying at a huge rate already and the other major ones are mostly in areas where everyone educated speaks at least one of the other three. Time frame could be this century.
Elevator — artwork by Gabriel Orozco
Image caption
Space elevators ‘will certainly be around’
11. Eighty per cent of the world will have gay marriage (Paul)
IP: Likelihood 8/10. This seems inevitable to those of us in the West and is likely to mean different kinds of marriages being available to everyone.
Gay people might pick different options from heterosexual people, but everyone will be allowed any option. Some regions will be highly resistant though because of strong religious influences, so it isn’t certain.
12. California will lead the break-up of the US (Dev 2)
IP: Likelihood 8/10. There are some indications already that California wants to split off and such pressures tend to build over time. It is hard to see this waiting until the end of the century.
Maybe an East Coast cluster will want to break off too. Pressures come from the enormous differences in wealth generation capability, and people not wanting to fund others if they can avoid it.
13. Space elevators will make space travel cheap and easy (Ahdok)
IP: Likelihood 8/10. First space elevators will certainly be around, and although “cheap” is a relative term, it will certainly be a lot cheaper than conventional space development.
It will create a strong acceleration in space development and tourism will be one important area, but I doubt the costs will be low enough for most people to try.
14. Women will be routinely impregnated by artificial insemination rather than by a man (krozier 93)
PT: Pretty close. At the very least, more couples are choosing advanced fertility techniques over old-fashioned conception.
Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, in which an artificially inseminated embryo is carefully selected among other inseminated embryos for desirability, is becoming increasingly common in fertility clinics.
Using this technique, it’s now possible to screen an embryo for about half of all congenital illnesses. Within the next decade, researchers will be able to screen for almost all congenital illnesses prior to embryo implantation.
IP: Likelihood 5/10.
15. There will be museums for almost every aspect of nature, as so much of the world’s natural habitat will have been destroyed (LowMaintenanceLifestyles)
PT: Pretty close. I cannot comment on the museums but the Earth is on the verge of a significant species extinction event.
Protecting biodiversity in a time of increased resource consumption, overpopulation, and environmental degradation will require continued sacrifice on the part of local, often impoverished communities.
Experts contend that incorporating local communities’ economic interests into conservation plans will be essential to species protection in the next century.
IP: Likelihood 2/10.
16. Deserts will become tropical forests (jim300)
IP: Likelihood 7/10. Desert greening is progressing so this is just about possible.
Hands
17. Marriage will be replaced by an annual contract (holierthanthou)
IP: Likelihood 6/10. I think we will certainly see some weaker forms of marriage that are designed to last a decade or two rather than a whole lifetime, but traditional marriage will still be an option.
Increasing longevity is the key — if you marry at 20 and live to well over 100, that is far too long a commitment.
People will want marriages that aren’t necessarily forever, but don’t bankrupt them when they end.
18. Sovereign nation states will cease to exist and there will be one world government (krozier93)
PT: Great try! However, I think that the trend is in the direction of more sovereign nations rather than fewer. In the coming years, corporations or wealthy private citizens will attempt to use earth-moving technologies to build their own semi-sovereign entities in international waters.
IP: Likelihood 2/10.
19. War by the West will be fought totally by remote control (LowMaintenanceLifestyles)
IP: Likelihood 5/10.
20. Britain will have had a revolution (holierthanthou)
IP: Likelihood 7/10. Well, possible, but not as likely as some other trends.
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