High Heat
The world will feel different in 2100, when average temperatures will have risen by several degrees. Every kind of landscape that humans inhabit will be affected: urban, suburban, rural; mountains, plains, coasts. More of the developing world will acquire life-changing modern comforts. “You’ll have near-universal saturation of air-conditioning” in warm climes by 2100, says economist Lucas Davis of the University of California, Berkeley. By powering those devices, though, we’ll be contributing to global warming. If we can’t find ways to turn down the heat, we’ll find ways to adapt to it.
