Week 8 Antarctica

For my final trip of the year I decided to visit the Antarctic Peninsula. The year is 7010 and the world a we know it now is gone. The seas have rose over 100 ft, the earth is experiencing extreme weather patterns and the antarctic peninsula is part of the reason. Since our global government couldn't come to an agreement about our environment we stayed on the same path as we were in in the early 2000's. Much of the ecosystem that once flourishing in the icy wasteland is now extinct or on the brink of extinction. What used to be their home is now melted into the ocean. Frozen diseases and toxins from the past unfroze and destroyed civilizations and ecosystems across the globe. As predicted the average temperature on the continent rose .5 degrees Celsius every decade and the average temperature is now 2,500 degrees warmer than it was. Even as the earth got continuously warmer no one believed that we had caused it now we don't have a planet to live on.

Week 8: Global Warming - Natural Cycles in Guangzhou, China

Guangzhou at max 1.5m rise of sea levels (Cassidy, The CITYFix)

In 5000 years from now, I think that a major coastal city like Guangzhou, China, or any other major coastal town in the world for that matter, will no longer be inhabitable, at least not as is conceived today. Indeed, there must have been a gradual shrinkage of the human population for Planet Earth to survive and our civilization to persist. A large section of humans, animals, and vegetation would have faced a degree of biological extinction. We will be recovering from a major biodiversity loss. Sea levels would have risen from 3 to 4 meters as one of the potential long-term effects of global warming.

The surviving inhabitants of Guangzhou would have harnessed major technological breakthroughs in critical sectors, such as energy and fundamental understanding of the nature of the universe. This knowledge will allow them to live precariously on a few sections of their city by, for example, farming the ocean and sees.

However, some others will be living intermittently on other planets as well. Indeed, thanks to their newly acquired knowledge, Mars and Venus will be terraformed for the convenience of migration from Earth. Simultaneously, they will be in the process of attempting to “repair” an unrecognizable Guangzhou, whose climate oscillates now between cool and too hot for human life. For example, they would try to change old transport systems or enhance the type of settlements known in this major city today.

Coastal City 7019

Here I am at the coastal city of Staten Island. 5,000 years ago you could see the beautiful skyscrapers and the wonderful little shops that brought this community together. Due to global warming and the lack of care for preventing this the people who resided in Staten Island started to experience the change on the coast.The lack of care for the environment and how we could possibly help 5,000 years ago was ignored and as we are here in the year 7010. There is no human population and what was once a beautiful coastal city is now submerged.

If only we could have maybe been more prepared in  the year 2019 and actually took advantage of recycling and protecting the environment from all of these dangerous gases we release in the air. In the year 7010 we can actually go to Staten Island and enjoy what this coastal city has to offer.

Lake Superior - 7019

Lake Superior Shores-7019

 The history books speak of the glory and wonder of Lake Superior, the largest fresh water source in the world. The beauty that the history books speaks of his difficult to imagine when visiting Lake Superior today. Because of human neglect, global warming, and human health this once great lake is no longer at its prime.

Lake Superior is over grown with algae blooms and harmful water bacteria that is killing over the sea life and affecting human health. Because climate change was ignored for years snowfall and ice cover rose and lasted for much longer increments leading to rising water levels and massive storm damage around the lake. What were once called "500 year storms" are now happening monthly.

As a people, we must work to lesson the damage of our forefathers and work diligently to reclaim the beauty that once was Lake Superior.

Week 8: Global Warming

Staring out into the stars from our nice, habitable space station, it's easy to forget the conditions and ecological factors that humans needed to survive through thousands of years ago on planet Earth that we've read about on our digital textbooks. Life here in Alpha Centauri must be so luxurious compared to those people had to live through. Today, however, after days of reading and only imagining how it was, we finally get to experience it firsthand through our non-interfering time machines! The station researchers almost never let students use these, but after asking so many questions about what life on Earth was like, they finally agreed to let my class use them for the day.

Finally getting into my assigned time machine, I was initially overwhelmed by the amount of buttons and switches that were all around the single chair. As soon as I strapped myself in, however, everything went dark except for a single screen, which audibly asked, "What time and where?" Already knowing I wanted to visit London, one of the ancient cities that our textbooks always seem to mention, I had forgotten which age our professor wanted us to visit - was it 2019 or 9019? Playing it safe, I answered, "London, Earth, 7019," and closed my eyes.

View from my Time Machine (but really from the ISS Cupola, courtesy of NASA)

By the time it was over, I was already feeling the machine unexpectedly sway to and fro - I opened my eyes and realized the machine was floating in water, and looking outside, there was water as far as the eye could see, which only a few patches of land far into the distance. As I opened one of the time machine windows, a waft of extremely warm air hit my face, almost like stepping into one of the nuclear propulsion engineering rooms back home. I tapped my artificial intelligence companion watch, which confidently confirmed that yes, we were in 7019 London. Wondering why London looked like an ocean, I asked it to open my interactive textbook.

Apparently, early in the 2000s, despite the dire warnings by global warming experts and scientists, the people on Earth continued to disregard reports and evidence of skyrocketing warming trends. The most affecting trend was the global warming that resulted from the trapping of heat through gases in the Earth's atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide and water vapor, mostly as a result of the rapid rise of technology and machinery during those ages. Several attempts and initiatives to reverse this climbing CO2 rate were tried towards the end of the 21st century, such as electric cars and alternate energy sources (which, personally, seem quite primitive compared to what we have on the station), but the warming of the Earth came much quicker than expected. The growing of the population led to an increasing need for agriculture and industry to feed and sustain everyone, which meant much of the land that had helped naturally keep CO2 down had to be utilized. The changing climate also resulted in an increased amount of weather and natural cataclysms. 

Apparently, at the time, there was more than five million cubic miles of ice on the Earth, which would raise the sea level more than 200 hundred feet - because of the increasing carbon footprint, the average temperature on Earth rose from 58 degrees to ultimately almost 80 degrees. Thank goodness for the temperature regulators on our space station! Because of this gradual temperature raise, the immense glaciers, ice caps, and ice sheets all eventually melted to contribute to the global rising sea level, causing all coastal cities - such as London - to become relics under the water. After throwing all that information at me, my watch took a pause, then produced the following map virtually to display the difference between the Earth years of 2000 and 7000 in terms of sea level:

Europe (and London) in 7019 (courtesy of National Geographic)

I slowly realized that many of the cities I had on my list to time-travel to today - such as Venice, Cairo, Buenos Aires, Philadelphia, San Francisco - all had the same watery fate that I had before me. I also realized that my watch had continued spewing knowledge, describing how Earth's scientists went into the third millennium developing new technologies that slowly stopped and perhaps reversed the effects of global warming and the CO2 levels, but by then, the damage had already been done to Earth. Other technologies took priority at that point, which eventually lead to the necessary space colonization that was the beginning potential of my current and seemingly luxurious life in the stars. In 7019, the hope was that with humans out of the picture and the entirety of Earth deemed an Intergalactically Preserved Planet, an ice age would naturally trigger and potentially send the Earth through another cycle that would once again see ice as a dominant force in the natural system.

My watch finally concluded, reminding me that this information will be on the next test, and that it will come in handy once our space station visits Earth next year. Coincidentally, the time machine beeped, indicating that it was time for me to return to my own time. Already scheming about ways to sneak back into the time machine room soon to travel to the 2000s to actually see London at its finest, I strapped myself back into the time machine and said, "Home, present-day." 

References:
Carr, A. (2017, March 27). We're Due For Another Ice Age But Climate Change May Push It Back Another 100,000 Years, Researchers Say. Retrieved from https://weather.com/news/climate/news/ice-age-climate-change-earth-glacial-interglacial-period
Folger, T. (2013, September). Rising Seas. Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/09/rising-seas-coastal-impact-climate-change/
Questions (FAQ) | Facts – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet. (2015, March 18). Retrieved from https://climate.nasa.gov/faq/
What the World Would Look Like if All the Ice Melted. (2017, September 18). Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2013/09/rising-seas-ice-melt-new-shoreline-maps/

Week 8: Morgan Florence

Imagine, as you walk outside to escort your child to school, a reflection of a green fog lurks over you from the green house bubble of pollutants. Vehicles will no longer be an option of transportation due to the increase of fumes. Most days you are advised to stay indoors due to the dense amount of carbon monoxide in the air the heat index exceeding ‘black flag’ conditions.

Waste concentration in the world will have exceeded the vacancy of personal space. Mid 5000 there was a boom of population, creating less space for building and industry creation. Although there is less space, production does not stop, which means pollution does not either. Fumes from trash improperly disposed of will reek from a mile away, the trash buried in the ground (to help make space)- contaminates the scarce water sources needed to survive. Rations of potable water will be provided to families of priority. Fish industries will no longer be at work, warm water species will take over all bodies of water, thus killing off the cold water fish that are considered to be the backbone of the industry. Children will be taught the meaning and significance of the once had ‘glaciers’, as these will no longer be, as the melting resulted in emergence flooding in parts or the world.

Around year 5000, increase of population created less space for building and less job opportunities. By 1710, the population has decreased as life expectancy and the value of life has declined greatly within 2000 years. Techniques of burying trash, resulting in other contamination was meant to adapt to the issues rather than make them worse. Natural contributions to global warming such as glaciers melting- creating emergence flooding in countries create hardening affects from the initial impact from the 1500 to 1710, due to the constant treading of the environment and the people.

Week 8 - Kody Johnson

Bahrain was once a beautiful island in the Persian Gulf. Due to much abuse from humans, Bahrain has suffered a massive amount of coastal erosion. Due to rising sea levels, Bahrain lost over half of its already small land mass. Due to most of the countries population being located near the coast, the country had to rebuild and move closer into the center of the island. This impacted the economy in a serious way. The shifting of the climate over time affected the water supply, causing many Bahraini citizens to have to go without water for extended periods of time. What was once a beautiful island is now devastated due to global warming. Most of the population had to flee to the mainland to survive.