I’ve Got this Sinking Feeling

Actually, it only seems as if we are sinking, but if all the polar ice melted, a definite possibility over the next century, centuries or so, map expert Jeffrey Linn decided it was time to show folks what some of our American cities would look like. His incredible expressions are available on FastCompany.com (December 6^th), but the above map of Los Angeles will give you a taste. He’s had a bit of fun with the names. “In L.A., the city of Downey has become ‘Drowney,’ and the airport is ‘Ex-LAX.’ The map also notates where landmarks like Disneyland and the Miracle Mile would end up in the newly formed bay.” FastCompany.com.

You can also see renditions of Palm Springs, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver and San Diego. Might be fun to look at from 2015, but as the years pass and we continue to ignore the climate change admonitions with corrective actions of “too little, too late,” these maps will become planning tools. “By 2100, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts a sea level rise between 1.7 and 3.2 feet; other climate scientists say it might be as much as 4 feet, and nearly 10 feet by 2300. And while that's not enough to drown Portland, it's sufficient to devastate coastal cities.” FastCompany.com

Entire civilizations will have to adapt not just to the coastal reconfigurations, but the new deserts and flood plains that will have formed, how old crops won’t grow in new climates, how new disease, insect and animal migration patterns will influence life as we know it, the extinction patterns of people, places and species… well you get it.

Over the coming years and based on climate-driven resource reallocation, we can expert ramped-up political turmoil, more extremist religiosity, wars (civil and otherwise) to be explosive and new political boundaries to be commonly redrawn. As different parts of our own United States face instant devastation from severe weather attacks and storm surges while others slowly but permanently lose agricultural capacity and cannot survive in new waterless areas, the taxing of federal emergency services suggests that this nation could easily fracture into separate need-based new sub-countries with armed conflict over wealth and resources becoming pretty nasty in a nation that holds gun ownership near sacred. Political polarization will only amp up the violence if we cannot save our working environment.

Politicians get elected to make changes within the spectrum of their term in office. They are not rewarded for saving future generations or preserving their very nation in 100 years. If indeed, the global citizens of the future could vote in current elections, I would suspect that virtually no major global leader would stand a chance of holding office. So who exactly is responsible for future human beings? Do we write about a post-apocalyptic world out of a sense of amusement or bona fide dread? And since “it’s the economy stupid” is the most basic political rallying cry, which seems always to pit economic growth advocates against environmentalists, should we just start building our future based on the assumptions of the worst that can happen?

I’m Peter Dekom, and while none of us will be around when it really gets bad, the people of the future will remember who caused it all.