Global warming. What will the world be like in 50 years?
466061
The massive ice sheets in the Arctic are melting at alarming rates. This is causing the oceans to rise. Rising ocean levels, an estimated six feet over the next 100 years or sooner, will cause massive devastation and economic catastrophe to population centers worldwide.\n\nMalaria. Dengue Fever. Encephalitis. These names are not usually heard in emergency rooms and doctors’s offices in US. But if we don’t act to curb global warming, they will be. As temperatures rise, disease-carrying mosquitoes and rodents spread, infecting people in their wake. Doctors at the Harvard Medical School have linked recent U.S. outbreaks of dengue (‘breakbone’s) fever, malaria, hantavirus and other diseases directly to climate change.\n\nSuper powerful hurricanes, fueled by warmer ocean temperatures are the “smoking gun” of global warming. Since 1970, the number of category 4 and 5 events has jumped sharply. Hurricane Katrina, in September 2005 almost became a category 6 event. Human activities are adding an alarming amount of pollution to the earth’s atmosphere causing catastrophic shifts in weather patterns. These shifts are causing severe heat, floods and worse.
163435
it sounds like you're talking about global warming. it's very likely that the oceans will rise significantly and that the coastline of all the continents and islands is gonna change considerably. the latest I've heard is not 3' in the next 30 years but maybe 1'.
20720
i would be quite suprised to see if life on this planet did not face mass-extinction within the next fifty years.
736647
Well the sun is getting hotter and will continue to do so until most of  the hydrogen is converted to helium it will then expand to become a red giant. \n\nHowever the effects of this will be minute compared to processes on the earth, IE its tilt, orbit, and mankind's carbon emissions and of cause the deforestation. It must be remembered that we are in an interglacial period and the earth has been a lot warmer than it currently is. The problem is that the increase in temperature is the largest in thousands of years. BUT, when the last ice age finished the temperature rise in approx 50 years was much higher than our rise in 200 years so it is all relative.\n\nThe "freak" weather conditions on other planets may well be perfectly normal for them, remember at best we have only had probes in regular orbits around the other planets for at best 20 years with the resolution capacity to take images that show them.\n\nThe biggest problem is that although in UK we have large taxes on fuel much bigger than any proposed tax by most over governments, there is no unified effort to get us off fossil fuels, if there was someway of getting me out of my 1.2 litre small car than fine, But whats the point when someone in an other country with a 4 litre car still pays less than me to go the same distance?
992273
Old age, the Earth will gradually become uninhabitable over a very long period of time until the time comes when the few million people that are left only have legends about how the planet once supported billions.\nNuclear war,  pandemics, possible global warming would be as hiccups along the way.
114073
i believe that it will be awful with global warming and everything. it will get warmer which means that sea levels will rise.but people will invent all sorts of new things to stop that from happening people might also be able to live longer because of all the medicines.
368929
Eventually, I believe it probably will.  Whether this takes 50 years or 500 is something only time will tell.
937075
I hope that in 5 billion years. We have somewhat evolved beyond this planet. Besides we won't have enough land or fossil fuels to last the next five hundred. I can hardly imagine five billion years from now.
346931
We are already seeing the effects. Read Bright Dawn, dark future  it was published in the early 90s but predict several events that have happened since do to GLOBAL WARMING!!!
1006182
There are many possible futures,depending on what actions we\ntake-or don't take-in the present.Here are some...\n\n1. Global Warming is universally accepted by all as reality and not\ntheory when it's effects are fully felt-in the form of coastline flooding,a rise in the world's average temperature,famine.\nNone of the old people admit to the fact they had thought the whole thing was a story invented by foreign scientists to devalue\nthe U.S. economy. Noone will admit ever having voted for G.W.\nBush after accepting his brilliant opinion on global warming.\nEventually most people die as a direct or indirect result of the\ndamaged environment. The survivors move underground to escape UV rays and humanity becomes a subterranean race.\n\n2. Humans create AIs in the form of robots and computers,\nwho gradually take over the tasks needed to keep society functioning. After initial turmoil and mass unemployment suffered\nby countless now obsolete human workers,people adjust and\nenter into a new golden age of luxury and leisure. After they become useless drones,the AIs decide they are more worthy\nto govern the world and take over. Humans become extinct.\nThe AIs remember them much the same way as descendants\nof cro-magnon remember neanderthals.\n\n3.In the twenty-first century,after years of economic and political\ncompetition,the United States and China go to war. Their allies\ntake sides,the long-awaited Third World War finally happens.\nNuclear weapons are used with two possible outcomes here:\na) The human race proves it's stupidity and destroys itself.\nb) After limited use of nuclear weapons,millions of people are\nkilled,nation-states disappear from the world scene and there\nis a technological regression because of the global destruction.\nIt's the beginning of a new dark age,worse than after the fall of\nRome.\n\n4. Humanity solves global warming,effectively controls the use\nof AIs and avoids nuclear war again. Overpopulation becomes\nthe world's biggest problem,bringing birth control to the spotlight.\nHuge advertising campaigns urging people not to have more\nthan one child take place. Eventually it becomes law. There\nare huge riots,many people killed as the world adjusts.\n\n5. A few years into the future,a wandering asteroid hits Earth.\nThe impact destroys all life on the planet as if it had never been.\nThe rest of the universe doesn't even notice.\n\n6. Humanity solves all of the above problems and enters a period\nscience fiction writers dream of. Technological advances take\nplace. There are no flying cars,but cars are programmed with\nautopilot and GPS. Cures are found for diseases like cancer or\nAIDS. The human life span is extended to twice the previous \nextent. Space travel progresses-colonies are established on the\nmoon and Mars. The solar system is explored,and preparations\nare made for the first interstellar flight. The human race,in the\nthird millinieum,goes out into the galaxy.\n\n My favorite option is the last,of course,but I consider it to be the\nmost unlikely-with the possible exception of the asteroid scenario.\nThey say one is bound to hit Earth eventually but noone knows\nwhen. It could be tomorrow or a hundred years from now. Anyway\nthe future will be a difficult road and who can really imagine?\nWould a person from 1906 be able to imagine the events and\nadvances of the twentieth century?
1085632
It is too early to tell but with Global Warming the chances are getting better and better!\nBut it would be pretty weak.
424640
First, we'll start running out of it.  Prices will go up.  It will be more expensive to drive, and everything will cost more because it takes gas to ship stuff everywhere.  Airplane travel will skyrocket in price because planes use so much gas.\n\nSecond, there will probably be more wars over oil in the Middle East.  Saudi Arabia has so much oil- it seems like a likely target, either through inciting a civil war or from the outside.  The US will probably be involved in whatever war starts, because we need so much oil here and we have such a big military- we feel like we can take what we need without caring about the people who actually die for it.  China may also be involved in some of this conflict, for similar reasons- big military, huge oil consumption.\n\nThird, people's lives will start to change.  If oil is used up, people may start actually using the altnerative technologies we have available- wind, solar, natural gas, and coming up with cheap ways to spread it around.  More hybrid cars, windmills, solar panels, but maybe a new system to dispense natural gas nationwide at gas stations, if that ends up powering our cars.\n\nFourth, eventually the environmental costs of all our oil consumption will start to catch up to us.  Global warming is already a problem: warming means ice melting, and when the polar caps melt the oceans will rise.  Coastlands will be submerged gradually, first with little islands vanishing(already happening) and then with flooding in coastal wetlands and places like Venice (also already happening).  Despite all this extra water around, it's going to be salty water.  Warming also means droughts and desertification as temperatures rise in tropical regions, especially.  Lots of people will die in sub-Saharan Africa because of a lack of clean drinking water (also already happening).  Fertile land will diminish worldwide, and more people will die from starvation than do already.\n\nThe next wars won't be fought over oil, they'll be fought over water.  Look at the American southwest, and the controversy over the Colorado River/ LA and you'll get an idea of how much water rights mean already.  Dams and river diversion will cause international incidents, and we'll have to make some fast advances in desalinization technology if we want to fight back against these rising tides.\n\nIt's not hopeless, just really, really difficult.  And it gets harder the longer we wait to do something about it- so start today and try to conserve oil.
1099842
well its not a very long span of time so there will be very very minute changes.. if we remain alive, then i think some of the changes can be:\n1) average height will reduce\n2) we will develop some adaptations in our skin, lungs and eyes to protect ourselves from pollution\nand many other possible changes...\nwe must not say that we wont be alive after 20000 years.... always hope for the best........\nLETS MAKE THIS WORLD A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE
156306
the current estimates are at 50 years
580787
It really depends of what you mean to be bad. If you're talking like huge coastal flooding and climate that is not suitable for living, I suppose that will be 50 to 70 years away, if the current pattern keeps going on.\n\nAnother less eye catching, yet really compelling item that can destroy the world is the spread of disease. Bird flu is definitely emerging and the other unknown disease are also huge threats to the world. With all the international travel, half the earth's population may die in a year in case of an out break of those deadly diseases. That's should be what we fear more about at the moment.
634522
Climate change is a natural cycle for the Earth and will happen regardless of human interferance. In fact if you look at the cycles of Glaciation and Warming over the past few hundred millenia, we are probably due for a massive cooling phase, maybe even dramatic glaciation, sometime in the next few hundred years. A number of things affect this, most notably the tilt of the Earth in relation to the sun. This is effected by the cycle of the planets and their orbits, and cannot be changed or prevented. We are due, and when it happens it is likely that large portions of the northern hemisphere will become covered in glacial ice, as happened about 20,000 years ago, and lasted until about 8,000 years ago. The mini-glaciations happen in about 10,000 year cycles, so our current warm period (an inter-glaciation, not a warm period) is due to end soon. \nOne of my archaeology professors said to me once that it may well be deemed that the breif delay in this caused by carbon emissions may be deemed the greatest attempted effort of human engineering well in the future.
627728
The fact that the globe has been slowly warming up ever since the last ice age should be reason enough to suspect that global warming isn't at all a catastrophe.  We people on Earth really need to start looking to other problems like natural resources.