The World in 2050 Lecture Review

Friday, October 6 was the first lecture by the Los Angeles Geographical Society I attended.  It was called The New North: Four Forces Shaping the World in 2050 and it was presented by Laurence C. Smith, Professor and Vice-Chair of Geography at UCLA.

Professor Smith discussed his research, which spanned 15 months over 2006 and 2007 through a Guggenheim Fellowship studying Arctic climate change and its impact on the people of the north.  I was surprised that the lecture closely related the material I am studying in my geography courses at school. Professor Smith spoke a bit about Iceland and Russia and in my mind I felt proud that I knew certain geographical features of Iceland and Russia's dash for a piece of the Arctic Ocean.  I know it seems trivial, but when I've attended these sorts of conferences in the past, I didn't have the background knowledge to understand the information being presented.  I vaguely remember attending a cognitive science lecture at the Los Angeles Convention Center (I don't remember when or why I was there) and I could not understand anything.  I did get to hold an actual brain, but as far as information went, I could not process the knowledge. So, it feels pretty good that I can go to a geographical lecture and connect the decreasing extent of sea ice and what that means for shipping routes in the Arctic (very big expansion).

The lecture focused on four forces: 

1. Demographics - urbanization, migration

2. Natural Resources  

3. Globalization - trade deregulation, multi-national corporations

4. Climate Change

Demographics

In 2008, the world surpassed a major threshold.  More people were now living in the cities than in rural areas.  I wonder if that means that the Anthropocene epoch is indisputably here?  The human population is growing, but interestingly fertility rates in developing countries are declining.

Natural Resources

There is a recurring theme amongst the book world regarding natural resources and that is "conflict" especially in Iraq and the Middle East.  This theme of resource conflict emerged again and again in Professor Smith's lecture, which is influenced by climate change.

Climate Change

The seal level is rising and the snow level illustrates a downward trend. Meanwhile, CO2 emissions are continuously rising.  The figure below projects what the future looks like based on three emissions scenarios: low growth, moderate growth and high growth.

Source: NASA Earth Observatory, based on IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (2007)

So the future looks pretty grim.  Indeed, Professor Smith stated that even an aggressive reform would not entirely help, but he asserted that this does not mean that we throw up our hands and give up.  This should actually inspire people to take action.

1. Social choice really matters in the long run

2. Global warming is neither truly global or warming

3. Some places will be hit even worse by climate change

One of those places to be hit hardest is the North, which will be the topic of my next blog post