The relationship between human civilization and the natural environment will be a huge determinant of the future of the world.
If it is possible to travel back in time to about 5 centuries ago, we will witness the stage of a powerful Aztec empire nearing the stage of decline, admire the impressive works of the painter of the period. renaissance or feel a deep drop in temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere. It was a world that emerged between the Little Ice Age (AD 1300 to 1850) and a period of extensive European exploration known today as the Age of Discovery. .
Humans have changed the Earth a lot.
But what will be new if we can touch the future 500 years later and “target” the Earth of the 26th century?
The answer will depend a lot on the relationship between human civilization and the natural environment that surrounds it – past, present and, of course, future. Humans have transformed the Earth, starting at least with the Agricultural Revolution of the Neolithic Age. We have manipulated the evolution of native flora and fauna, altered the landscape, and burned fossil fuels to power our lives.
As a result, the planet’s climate has changed, and that process is still happening. Some experts argue that the human impacts of climate change date back to the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s, others suggest that it started with slash-and-burn agricultural practices that date back to prehistoric. Either way, the scientific community still agrees that human activities are responsible for the trend of climate warming over the past century.
According to NASA, carbon dioxide emissions reached 412 ppm in December 2019, up from 316 ppm in 1958, when scientists first tracked CO2 levels. Global temperatures have increased by 1.15 degrees Celsius since 1880, according to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Meanwhile, NASA says Arctic ice is decreasing 12.85% per decade, and sea levels are rising 3.3mm per year.
Earth in the 26th century will face climate change.
In other words, our planet is warming, weather extremes are intensifying, and the natural environment is changing. These changes threaten the balance of already highly exploited natural resources. The United Nations warns that the consequences of droughts, floods, heat waves and wildfires will accelerate land degradation and accelerate the risk of food shortages. That shortage is the catalyst that history has proven to lead to social unrest, mass migration, and conflict.
So, to some extent, the 26th century Earth will face climate change . According to some computer models, the melting of Antarctic ice could cause sea levels to rise by 0.3 meters by the end of this century and by 8 meters by 2300.
Perhaps our 26th-century descendants will look back and appreciate how our ancestors worked together to solve problems before it was too late. Perhaps they will realize that we have made the series of technological, cultural and political changes necessary to prevent mass extinctions, political upheaval, environmental devastation, and even extinction. collapse of civilization. To be sure, there are already planned processes of action to begin with, as long as people can maintain the culture and politics that are willing to follow them.
Or maybe, they’ll see us as the ones who pushed the world into ruin.
However, on that distant journey, our children and grandchildren will develop their technology, and although technology causes climate change and nuclear war, it also offers the potential to turn the tide and improve the problem.
Theoretical physicist and futurist Michio Kaku predicts that within just 100 years, humanity will make the leap from a Type 0 civilization to a Type I civilization on the Kardashev Scale . In other words, we will become a species that can control the entire energy of a planet.
In the future, we will become a species that can control the entire energy of a planet.
Possessing such a power, humans in the 26th century could be masters of clean energy technologies such as fusion and solar power. Furthermore, they can manipulate planetary energy to control the global climate. However, futurologists disagree on the timing of such a hypothetical upgrade to human technological prowess – and that scenario is hardly guaranteed either. As Michael Shermer, a skeptic scientist, pointed out in an article in the Los Angeles Times in 2008, that political and economic forces will most likely stand in the way of man making a step. leap forward.
Technology has improved exponentially since the 1500s, and that pace will continue for centuries to come. The great physicist Stephen Hawking proposed a hypothesis that by 2600, at this rate, we would see 10 new theoretical physics papers published every 10 seconds. If Moore’s Law holds, with the speed and complexity of computing doubling every 18 months, some of that research could be the result of highly intelligent machines. Then again, he also predicts that overcrowding and energy consumption will render the Earth uninhabitable by 2600.
What other technologies will shape the world of the 26th century? Futurist Adrian Berry believes that the average human lifespan will reach 140 years and that digital archiving of the human personality will allow for computerized immortality. Humans will farm the oceans, travel on spacecraft, and populate both the Moon and Mars while robots explore outer space.
These achievements could be useful, at least in a privileged few respects, if serious changes do not emerge.