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lore our planet is getting warmer
exactly how much warmer it's going to
get in the future is anybody's guess but
let's just say for fun that the Earth's
average temperature increases by oh I
don't know let's say 4 degrees Celsius
by the end of the 21st century how will
that change our planets geography and
how will it change all of our daily
lives for starters the scenario is based
on a map created by a guy named para
Cana in his book connect ography which
was published four years ago back in
2016 the link for which is down in the
description now in the book Cana created
this map that shows what a speculative
world would look like that's four
degrees Celsius warmer and there's a lot
of interesting implications to unpack
here first off the bad news most of the
world is now a desert which sucks just
look at how much sand there is on this
map now geez every continent in the
world is now home to massive deserts and
Africa is effectively an entire desert
continent extreme weather droughts and
floods render most of the rest of
Earth's surface uninhabitable in their
own ways and the only habitable zones
left on the planet are the narrow bands
of land closer to the poles so here's a
list of the most heavily screwed over
countries in the world and what would
happen to them in this scenario followed
by the countries that might actually be
kind of ok and maybe actually benefit
the most China almost entirely an
uninhabitable desert the yellow and
Yangtze rivers dry up and intense
weather erodes much of the land away
which leaves behind a vast and sparsely
populated deserts almost everybody
living here will have to evacuate which
is over 1.4 billion people the same
thing will happen in Korea and Japan too
which also effectively become hot
uninhabitable deserts Indonesia
significant parts of the island chain
are submerged underwater from rising sea
levels
Borneo becomes a desert and the rest of
the islands are plagued by extreme
weather and floods most of the islands
in Polynesia gone just gone all
underwater
100% evacuation of the populations are
necessary the Indian subcontinent
Bangladesh is almost entirely flooded in
under water from rising sea levels
meaning that almost all of the 160
million plus people who live here will
have to be relocated most of the
glaciers in the Himalayas have melted
which contributes to mighty rivers like
the Ganges and the induce to dry up most
of India becomes a desert with only a
tiny habitable area in the far south
still remaining suitable for agriculture
and human life Pakistan is plagued by
severe droughts after the Indus tries up
meaning that only isolated pockets of
human communities will be able to
continue existing here most of the
population will have to be relocated
elsewhere Africa is now an entire desert
continent but with some potential to
reforest the Sahel Africa's entire
population will have to either
concentrate into just the Sahel or
evacuate to the more habitable zones on
other continents South America is mostly
pretty screwed the Amazon rainforest is
destroyed and transforms into a massive
desert the glaciers high up in the Andes
mostly melt away just like in the
Himalayas leaving areas like Peru a dry
and uninhabitable wasteland Brazil is
played by deserts floods and droughts
and we'll have to mostly be evacuated
the only part of South America that will
be productive and remain highly livable
is the far southern reaches of Patagonia
in Chile and Argentina Patagonia is
sparsely populated in cold today but the
warming climate and the melting glaciers
will give rise to plentiful arable land
that could be well-suited to agriculture
and human life so most of South
America's population will have to either
concentrate down just here or flee to
other continents now Australia is
interesting because it's not all bad the
East Coast where most of the population
is concentrated today would be totally
desertified and most people there would
have to evacuate but new habitable areas
that are better for agriculture and
development would pop up in northern
Australia and Tasmania
while the west coast would become a
pretty ideal place to regrow some
forests New Zealand on the other hand
will be almost entirely unrecognizable
from what it looks
today the islands will be one of the few
truly habitable locations remaining on
the planets and tens of millions of
refugees from across the world will
probably end up having to be resettled
here New Zealand will probably end up
becoming one of the most densely
populated areas in the world with
massive cities in the country will
likely rise up to the status of a global
great power but other great powers will
exist in this new warmer world to the
United States while severely weakened by
most of her territory transforming into
a desert will likely still remain at
least a great power because of Alaska
and the far northern states states like
Washington Montana North Dakota
Minnesota and Wisconsin will still
remain habitable and be highly suitable
for agriculture while Alaska will
suddenly become extremely pleasant most
of the American population will have to
be relocated to these handful of states
but Alaska is enormous and it's mostly
uninhabited today it's almost one-third
of the size of the lower 48 US states
all on its own and with the warmer
climates Alaska could actually be used
for farming it's also rich in natural
resources like oil that would be more
easily accessible and it could probably
end up sustaining tens of millions of
people living there so just like New
Zealand Alaska would be unrecognizable
to what it looks like today with massive
cities home to probably hundreds of
millions of people Anchorage Fairbanks
Seattle and Minneapolis would probably
become the new most significant cities
in the United States a country that
would probably diminish in power but
likely still remain at least a great
power over in Europe the UK and Ireland
would still remain highly habitable with
a climate that probably more resembles
southern France or Spain today and just
like New Zealand and the United States
the UK would probably be one of the
warmer new world's great powers but
newer great powers would emerge from the
Nordic countries Denmark Norway Sweden
Finland and Iceland would all find
themselves in a very strategic position
with significantly warmer climates than
today much better prospects for farming
and a highly strategic location near the
now summer ice-free
arctic ocean all of the Nordic countries
would have potential to achieve great
power status with enough room for tens
of millions of new people to settle in
each but the one in the best position is
probably Denmark because of their
ownership over Greenland Greenland is
gigantic but it's extremely
underdeveloped to date with only 56,000
people living there because it's mostly
all covered in a huge ice sheets in this
warmer climate though Greenland's ice
sheet would be rapidly melting which
would reveal an almost new world for
colonization and resource exploitation
Greenland would rapidly be becoming very
habitable and pleasant to live on
particularly on the west coast of the
island where Denmark could resettle tens
of millions of people from across the
world on Denmark's overall population
could therefore soar into the hundreds
of millions potentially depending on how
much of Greenland is opened up by the
retreating ice sheets on their own the
Nordic countries will each become the
new major European great powers at the
expense of other countries turning
largely into deserts like Spain Italy
France or even Germany and other
countries going underwater like the
Netherlands and Belgium
if the Nordics can manage to overcome
their differences in unite in the warmer
world it's highly likely that they would
become a legitimate global superpower
but there would still be two other
countries that would be in an even
better position to become superpowers
Canada and Russia just take a look at
all of this nice warm and habitable land
that both countries would control that's
mostly a frozen hellhole today nearly
all of Canada would become nice and
pleasant with an ideal farming climate
that could grow most of the world's
crops the Arctic passage meanwhile would
be free of ice year-round and with most
of the world's population now living
around the Arctic Circle in Canada
Alaska the Nordic States and Russia the
Arctic passage is without a doubt going
to become the new most valuable trade
route in the entire world that connects
them all together Canada's population
today is only 37 million people and the
overwhelming majority of all of this
land is uninhabited so if she wishes
Canada could open up the floodgates of
resettle
an immigration and resettle hundreds of
millions of people from across the world
into all of this open land that will now
actually be easy to develop Canada's
superpower status would be almost
assured in the long run and she would
likely simply replace the United States
on the world stage
meanwhile the country that would be
somehow in an even better position to
claim superpower status would give
Russia Russia has even more land in
Canada and even more of this land would
become warmer and suitable for
agriculture and mining Siberia is
enormous and it's rich with resources
that are hard to get to right now
because of the cold climate but that
drastically changes under the scenario
the biggest problems preventing Russia
from becoming a more significant power
than she could be have always been the
cold climate that she finds herself
trapped in Russia has historically
almost always been an effectively
landlocked state because most of her
coastline is covered by ice for a
significant part of the year in modern
times the only ports that Russia
controls that are ice-free year-round
are in Kaliningrad on the Baltic and the
Crimean caucuses ports on the Black Sea
the problem has always been though that
both of these port areas are incredibly
easy to blockade because ships have to
pass through the choke points of either
the Danish Straits and the Baltic or the
Dardanelles in the Black Sea
Russia's entire history and geopolitical
strategy has been dominated for
centuries by this Geographic reality and
the need to have ports on warmer water
that aren't as easy to blockade if the
world warms up by four degrees Celsius
though this entire reality changes
forever
Russia's massive northern coast along
the Arctic in the Sea of a cuts in the
Pacific opens up year round without any
ice for the first time ever allowing
Russia to finally build ports wherever
she wants without having to 100% rely on
the Baltic and Black Sea ports during
winter Russia's enormous and sparsely
populated Asian territory is finally
available for massive colonization and
development efforts with enormous
supplies of resources that will be easy
to get to now Russia will be in the best
possible position in the warm new world
to quickly accelerate
superpower status and position is so
good Russia will probably end up
becoming the most powerful and dominant
country in the world capable of
resettling billions of people from other
regions of the world inside of her
borders Russia and Canada both will be
almost unrecognizable to what they are
today but maybe not so unrecognizable as
Antarctica Antarctica will actually
start to be greening if the world gets
this warm which has a lot of interesting
implications the westernmost side of
Antarctica will be green and actually
suitable for agriculture and
colonization here currently Western
Antarctica is claimed by the overlapping
claims of the United Kingdom Argentina
and Chile
well another vast area is currently not
claimed by anybody nobody permanently
lives here and with the area all of a
sudden becoming green farmable and
livable and with billions of homeless
climate refugees needing a new place to
go a new colonial scramble for
Antarctica could quickly ensue the UK
Argentina and Chile could enter into
conflicts over their competing claims
while other great powers like Canada and
Russia would probably try and state
their own colonial claims over the
currently unclaimed land and all the
while the billions of refugees from
uninhabitable desert countries would
probably just be clamoring to be
resettled onto the currently unoccupied
and now green Antarctic lands an Arctic
Oh will become one of the potential
global flashpoints and source of
enormous controversy in this new warm
world would Antarctica be ruled by
various different colonial powers with
settlers reminiscent of the Age of
Discovery would the United Nations
intervene and attempt to resettle a
green Antarctica with the billions of
climate refugees in desperate need of a
new home would a new Antarctica as a
brand new country rise up out of nowhere
over time that's made up of a culture of
people from all over the world displaced
by runaway climate change
vengeful at the rest of the world for
screwing them over and destroying their
ancestral homelands there's no real way
to tell but the extreme speculation is
effectively endless natural disasters
that destroyed communities will be a
defining characteristic of the 21st
century learning about how destructive
disasters can be and how societies can
avoid them is fascinating
me and I recently watched an excellent
documentary on curiosity stream that
details the raw power of one of the
greatest of all these disasters tsunamis
it chronicles a worldwide scientific
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