Landscape of Great Change by the Numbers - Environmental Change and the Future of Humanity" - circa 2025
Global-scale change is quietly progressing beneath our feet. The International Organization for Migration estimates that approximately 1.5 billion people will become environmental refugees in the next 30 years, and up to 3.5 billion people will be forced into "unlivable places. Global warming has increased the number of days with temperatures above 50 degrees Celsius by a factor of 11 over the past 30 years. It is estimated that 500,000 homes in the U.S. will be flooded each year by 2050, and $241 billion worth of property will be lost.
Extreme weather also dramatically increased the number of people moving within the country: 1.7 million people lost their homes in the U.S. in 2020, eight times as many as in 2018. 130 million people in Bangladesh, 500 million in China, and 1 billion in India could be forced to move. Jakarta is sinking 25 centimeters every year, and functional relocation is inevitable by 2050.
Meanwhile, the population of developed countries is declining and aging: by 2100, the populations of 13 countries will have been cut in half; in North America and Europe, the elderly will number more than 300 million; by 2050, a society in which 100 workers support 43 elderly people will become a reality. These numbers are not the future, but a reality that is etched in the strata of time, the present.
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