One billion years into the future,
you might imagine a world
full of artificial intelligence,
interstellar travel,
and space colonies.
Maybe we'll see the end of poverty
and hunger.
A society where we're all truly equal.
Well, these are all incredible scenarios
that may happen one day.
But let's take a step back
from our usual human-centric approach
of looking at the future.
Instead, let's keep our feet
firmly grounded right here on Earth.
Well, sort of grounded.
Let's hop in our time machine
and explore all the ways
Earth will evolve
in the next billion years.
The Earth is already 4.5 billion years old,
and as you probably know,
a ton of stuff has happened
in that time.
Just a quarter of a billion years ago,
dinosaurs ruled the planet.
Think they'll make
a big comeback in the future?
Let's find out.
You'd be surprised by how much things
would have already changed
just a century from now.
Well, maybe you shouldn't be totally shocked
because even now,
the effects of global warming are very real.
Just how dramatically
the climate changes in the next century
will depend on
what steps humanity takes
to curb its effects.
But you should certainly anticipate
that temperatures around the globe will get,
well, warmer.
The biggest impact this will have is on sea levels,
which, as you know,
are already on the rise.
You'll see them climb higher and higher,
threatening many of the world's coastal cities.
Bangkok, Miami, Venice,
and many more around the globe
could all be heavily submerged by 2124.
This would force humanity
to redraw the world map,
but, more devastatingly,
rising sea levels would displace
hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
This would lead to chaos,
causing political crises
and societal transformations.
Plenty of animal species would be forced to migrate
or face extinction.
The major ecological shifts happening around Earth
could permanently transform entire ecosystems.
Now, beyond the melting polar ice caps,
higher temperatures
and changes in rainfall
would alter
rainforests into something
we don't recognize.
Heat-tolerant plants,
insects and small mammals would probably survive,
but we'd lose many iconic species.
Say goodbye to jaguars and orangutans.
Couple all these disasters
with an increase in the number of hurricanes,
and we're looking
at a very different world.
OK, let's fast forward a millennium.
Earth would still be getting hotter,
and the effects of global warming
would be even more pronounced.
But several other forces
would erupt to change our planet.
Literally.
At this point in the future,
several major volcanoes
could awaken from their long sleep.
Let's take a look at the supervolcano
located in Yellowstone National Park.
Or rather, the volcano
that is Yellowstone National Park.
When this thing blows,
it could produce an eruption
about as big as volcanic eruptions can be.
And it wouldn't just affect the immediate area
or the western region of North America.
No, this is going to impact the whole globe.
Massive amounts of gas and ash
will be ejected into the atmosphere,
blocking out sunlight in the sky.
Earth will effectively enter a volcanic winter.
This will have devastating effects
on the lives of different species
around the world.
Entire populations of animals
and humans will face extinction.
It'll also heavily affect our planet's agriculture systems.
Plants would be starved of light
and covered in volcanic ash,
forcing most of them to die.
But this might not be an entirely bad thing.
A volcanic winter like this
could help cool down the planet.
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Welcome to a completely new era
of Earth's geological history.
10,000 years in the future,
our landscapes and coastlines
could be reshaped with new mountain ranges
and large inland seas.
This would be thanks to the eruptions
of more large supervolcanoes,
mega-earthquakes,
and, in general,
the constant shifting of our planet's tectonic plates.
It would almost seem as if Earth is slowly
sculpting itself into a new form.
Geographically, we might experience
as much change as when Earth formed into Pangea.
And even without thinking about
where humans fit into this changing planet,
much of the evidence of our existence
would be buried under layers
of rock and ice.
If you, or alien archaeologists,
were to dig down,
you'd find a clear record
of our human impact
on Earth embedded
in the geological record.
Ok, jumping even further
into the future,
we'd only be a decimal point
on the way toward one billion years.
But by this time,
Earth would have gone through
at least one new ice age.
Maybe even a couple.
These periods of global freezing
and melting would continue
to transform the landscapes
we once knew so well.
There'd be new rivers and seas.
New emerging environments
- inhabited by new species of plants
and animals that managed
to adapt to all the changes
over the last 100,000 years.
Who knows what new species
would be on top of the food chain?
Even Earth's orbit could be different.
This wouldn't necessarily be a dramatic change,
but the pull of other celestial bodies
like Jupiter might bring us slightly
further away from the Sun than we are today.
This would change our day
and night cycles
and the temperature on Earth.
Ok, at this point,
the big blue marble we once called home
would be almost unrecognizable.
For starters,
the continents would no longer be where you thought they were.
Hey, maybe Canada will finally get
more than two months of summer.
And what was formerly the continent of Africa
might now be covered in snow.
Within these new continents,
new ecosystems would emerge,
making way for new life forms.
Some of which might even be intelligent.
There's no way of knowing exactly
what these new dominant species would look like.
But it's likely that whatever they are,
they'd be perfectly tailored
to the environment.
If the Earth were a rocky ball of giant magma,
they would have evolved
to withstand that.
Or if it were a watery planet,
they'd have gills to breathe underwater.
Humanity, at this point,
might be looked at like the dinosaurs.
A fascinating species
that once ruled the world
but ultimately went extinct.
Finally, you arrive at your destination,
even if you didn't travel very far
from where you began,
Except for the one billion years of history
you've witnessed, of course.
Earth 1 billion years in the future
would be unrecognizable to you.
By now,
the Sun would be about 10% brighter than you remembered it,
and this would mean
that temperatures around the planet
would be soaring.
Earth would be a completely barren,
desert-like world
without any of the oceans
that used to cover a majority of it.
Any sign of life
would have to be resilient enough
to live deep underground.
Hopefully, humans,
or any other intelligent species,
have left Earth
and started populating other celestial bodies.
Which is worth thinking about.
If Earth becomes uninhabitable,
where should we go next?
What planets might be better suited for life than this one?
Well, that's a story
for another WHAT IF.