"People are suffering."
"People are dying."
"Entire ecosystems are collapsing."
"We are at the beginning of a mass extinction,
and all you can talk about
is money and fairy tales
of eternal economic growth."
"How dare you."
If you were a time traveler,
wouldn't you wanna see
what's happening on Earth,
in the next 100 years?
Our civilization has faced
enormous threats,
bushfires,
earthquakes,
floods, and hurricanes.
And we continue to face lethal pandemics.
These dangers are so severe that
several scientists are concerned
that human civilization
might collapse.
It's a horrifying thought.
But what if it's true,
This is What If
In January of 2021,
a paper published
in Frontiers in Conservative Science
states that we are on a sixth
major extinction path.
According to the authors,
biodiversity loss,
climate disruption,
human consumption,
and population growth
will soon bring us to the end
of civilization as we know it.
And some physicists
have calculated
a 90% chance
that human society will collapse
within decades.
So, if we could see the future,
Our starting point is COVID-19.
This pandemic has killed millions worldwide.
Sure we have all kinds of vaccines but
because of our ecologically
unsustainable lifestyles,
scientists predict
more deadly pandemics, are on the horizon.
Surface temperatures,
at the top 100 m (330 ft) of the oceans,
have risen by one third of a degree (0.6 °F),
endangering 25% of biodiversity in marine life
and bleaching about 30%
of the global coral reefs.
Hold tight,
our path forward
is raising a lot of questions.
So let's keep going to find out.
Glaciers are melting,
raising global sea levels
by 20 cm (8 in).
Today floods are already happening
more frequently,
and rising sea levels are threatening cities,
towns, and villages worldwide.
This raises another question.
Would the inhabitants of these places
have to move somewhere else?
The numbers of mammals,
birds, reptiles, and fishes
have decreased by 70%
distrupting the food chain and ecosystems.
How could we sustain ourselves
and the next generations?
Pollution and consumerism
are depleting the soil and water,
decreasing our air quality,
and affecting what we are ingesting.
If the food we eat and the water we drink
are polluted,
you can bet our bodies will feel the brunt of it.
Cancer deaths are steadily increasing,
and they could rise even more
with the deterioration of the environment.
The world's richest 1% own half the wealth.
This extreme inequality
could increase even more.
This could cripple us by slowing down
any measures that could help us
to avoid humanity's collapse.
But if you are still optimistic
and think that
somehow everything is going to be okay, then
that's great.
But let's see if you are right.
70 to 90% of coral reefs would die.
Thousands of species and marine life
would begin to go extinct.
Add to this,
Earth's increasing temperature
and it could trigger the loss
of millions of tonnes of maize, wheat, and
soybean crops.
That would bring some parts of Asia,
South America, and Africa to starvation,
forcing us to change our diets drastically.
As ecosystem equilibrium breaks,
nature could respond with
infestations of insects.
That could impact our crops even more.
Millions of people
who rely on fishing and agriculture
would have to leave their homes
in order to survive.
An unprecedented mass migration
would begin.
Maybe, as
several cultures already do,
we would start to introduce
insects into our diet
as they would be plentiful and free.
You want some ketchup with that?
The Earth's population
would hit 10 billion by the year 2050.
Overpopulation and
a shortage of recources,
would inevitably bring social tensions
and poverty.
Ocean creatures,
and thousands of other species on Earth,
would disappear.
Sea levels would continue to rise.
Entire islands could be submerged.
Japan, Indonesia, the Caribbean,
and countless
coastal areas around the world
would become history.
Inhabitants of these areas
would have to move inland,
intensifying the mass migrations
already happening.
And any pre-existing conflicts
could trigger wars between countries.
We've seen how refugees are being treated.
Now, imagine that but
hundreds of times worse.
The lack of food and clean water
could worsen
and decimate our human population.
We would face drought, famine, pandemics.
And, these catastrophic events would
eventually affect everyone, everywhere,
and chaos would rule.
That
could leave us with
only a few thousand survivors
or it could lead us to total extinction.
After that, what would the Earth look like?
Human beings
would leave behind
abandoned civilizations and
mountains of waste,
mostly tons of plastic that
won't disappear for thousands of years.
And cities would
change drastically
due to the lack of maintenance.
Without people to maintain them,
sewers wouldn't divert rainfall
or rising groundwater.
The subways in massive, sprawling cities like
New York, London, Manila, Hong Kong
and Mumbai
could flood within hours.
Unmanned nuclear plants
could trigger leaks and nuclear meltdowns,
contaminating surrounding areas.
Insects would take over farmland,
cities, and the wild.
That could actually be beneficial
for several other survivor species.
As the years go by,
buildings would collapse
from erosion and fire.
Glass would probably go first,
followed by metal structures
that would rust and crumble.
Stone buildings might weather but
they would still last for millennia.
It would take millions of years for Earth
to recover.
But eventually,
it would become more lush and diverse.
New ecosystems would be in place,
with both old and newer species coexisting.
Of course, this is only a prediction.
But just look at the things that have
already happened and
things that are happening now.
Is there a chance that
our civilization could collapse
in the next century?
Well, we need to take drastic measures
against climate change right now.
If we don't,
we could be trapped at home forever
because outside would be too hot,
too polluted,
and there would be too many pandemics.
Can you imagine
what your life would be like
if COVID-19 never went away?
Well, that's a story
for another What If.