How the World Would Look in 2050


Charlie McGill
Mr. Roddy
GPHC
10/28/2019

How the World Would Look in 2050

For this weeks blog, I read the Times article “Hello From the Year 2050. We Avoided the Worst of Climate Change — But Everything Is Different” by Bill McKibben. The article is an informative and entertaining read--I strongly recommend it--but I’m mixed on some of the predictions it makes and the future he claims will happen. The first prediction is that a democrat will win 2020, with a “green vote” coming out of the shadows and voting in favor of aggressive climate policy, such as The Green New Deal. I do not think this will happen. In the article the green vote romps President Trump because of a devastating storm that takes place in the weeks before the election. This is very unlikely to happen, and although I can picture a green vote influencing the election, I still believe that our current president will stay in power. Our culture hasn’t shifted to one where climate change is the main focus, and since the economy is doing well President Trump will get reelected.

McKibben’s next few predictions bank on a democrat winning in 2020. What he says, that we will rejoin the Paris Agreement and pass aggressive policy to counter climate change, will happen if the country goes blue, but again I strongly believe President Trump will stay in office.

McKibben then talks about how we will work on the easy solutions. Cars will turn electric, companies, countries, and citizens will invest in renewable energy--making it the dominant energy producer in the world--and investors will stop investing in oil companies after huge corporations withdraw their stock in big oil. Everything he says here needs to and will happen soon. These are the easiest ways for a regular citizen to reduce their carbon emissions, and when the public begins to confront our future they will be motivated to make all these predictions happen. It truly is low-hanging fruit, and in a few years with the public backing every move companies will be motivated to pluck it.

Finally, McKibben addresses rising temperatures and what the world looks like as we approach 2050. The easy solutions are not enough to decrease the global temperature, or even stop temperatures from increasing. The temperature will still be rising yearly, just at a slower rate. Many areas of the world will be uninhabitable for a few weeks a summer, and agriculture will be affected all across the world. There will be around a billion climate refugees, and countries around the world will have no choice but to take them in. Borders will become practically open because of this issue. Although I don’t agree with everything Bill McKibben said, and I think that the effects of climate change won’t be as bad as people say (they’ll be bad don’t get me wrong, just not apocalyptic), most of the predictions in this article accurately reflect the state of the world in the coming decades. The world doesn’t look good in 2050, but we have avoided the worst of climate change.

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