Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
projections, then the SLR due to thermal expansion of the oceans is
straightforward. And in fact we see good agreement among physical
models about this impact.
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At the other end of the spectrum are potential impacts that are
highly contingent on future economic and social structures. What will
our cities look like? How will we transport people and goods? What bio-
engineered foods will we eat? What devilish weapons will be invented?
Will computers be in charge of everything from surveillance to fi nan-
cial markets?
THE CASE OF ENVIRONMENTAL MIGRATION
The challenge of projecting impacts in a vastly different world can be
illustrated with “environmental migration,” which features prominently
in many discussions of climate change. One report states that “unless
strong preventative action is taken, between now and 2050, climate
change will push the number of displaced people globally to at least 1 bil-
higher unemployment. Those conditions are ripe for extremists and ter-
rorists.”
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In reality, we know virtually nothing about the impact of global
warming on future human migrations. Consider some of the issues we
would need to understand to project migration over the next century.
We would need to know the national boundaries, populations, and per
capita incomes of major countries. What would be the boundary of the
European Union and the Eurozone? Would there even be a Eurozone?
(I doubt that there will be a recognizable Eurozone in a century, but I
leave it to future readers to provide the updated answer.) What will be
the economic and political structure of Africa? Would transportation
costs be much lower, perhaps with personal aircraft that could zip across
borders in a fl ash? What would be the impact on migration of the hypo-
thetical virtual social networking device “Mindbook,” which produces
a synthetic reality so vivid that people do not care where they live?
In addition, we would need to guess at future immigration policies
along with the technologies for enforcing these policies. Would borders
be more or less porous than today? What kind of personal identifi cation
