It is the year 7010, and although my time on Earth is almost
over, I wanted to see the land of my birth one last time, so my family and I
took a space capsule down to Southern California to see what has happened to my
hometown of San Diego.
People were raising the alarm concerning climate change as
far back as the 1980s, and it appears that they were not wrong. There
never was a consensus in regards to whether or not climate change was affected
anthropogenically, so nothing serious was done to address it. Because the arctic sea ice has almost
completely melted, the sea level has risen as much as fifteen feet in some
places, and the beaches of my childhood are no more. Most of the islands off of the coast of San
Diego are no longer visible due to the rising sea levels, and the greater San
Diego area now appears as if it is part of an island chain instead of a contiguous
land mass.
It is really sad when you understand that much of this could
have been avoided if we had done better with our stewardship of the
planet. Here is a map that represents
the land loss of not only California, but the North American continent as well. The areas highlighted in blue represent the lost land. As you can see, San Diego is no longer a part of the visible landmass of North America.
Photo retrieved from National Geographic at: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/09/rising-seas-ice-melt-new-shoreline-maps/
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